Senator Lamar Alexander Neo-Con Trotskyite: Part 4

“Our guiding principle in the design of a choice system is this: Public authority must be put to use in creating a system that is almost entirely beyond the reach of public authority.” John Chubb and Terry Moe

Total Control through CC, Charters, Vouchers/Choice

First, a little background of the restructuring of academic education in America to Skinnerian behavioral modification and dog training of our children. Remember, all the pieces fit together and the ultimate goal is for ALL EDUCATION to be funded by tax dollars. This will be accomplished by vouchers/choice/charters. Thus, all education will, by law, be under federal regulations, tests, assessments, outcomes, global workforce initiatives, etc.

In 1934, National Education Association (NEA) Former Executive Secretary Willard Givens warned that “…all of us, including the ‘owners’, must be subjected to a large degree of social control… An equitable distribution of income will be sought…the major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to give him understanding of the transition to a new social order.” (The Chronology of World Education by Dennis Cuddy)

Dr. Chester M. Pierce, Psychiatrist, in his address to the Childhood International Education Seminar, in 1973, said, “Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future.”

In 1934, the Carnegie Corporation said we are going to use the schools to change the US from a free market system to a planned economy. In a planned economy, as in Communist countries, the administration chooses at an early age what your child will do all throughout their lives. They want your child to decide by 5th grade, or they will decide for them! Link

In November,1989, President Bush called the nation’s governors together. Education secretary Lamar Alexander, together with governors Bill Clinton and Richard Riley and others, planned the six goals of America 2000. Speaking at this Governor’s Conference, Shirley McCune, Senior Director with MCREL (Mid Continent Regional Educational Laboratory), which develops curriculum, says,

“What’s happening in America today… is a total transformationof our society. We have moved into a new era…I’m not sure we have really begun to comprehend… the incredible amount of organizational restructuring and human resource development restructuring…. What the revolution has been in curriculum is that we no longer are teaching facts to children….”

At the 1989 Governor’s Conference in Kansas, SecretaryAlexander claimed, “The brand new American school would be year-round, open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., for children 3 months to 18 years.” Yeah, cradle to grave indoctrination!

The “America 2000 Plan,” written in 1991 and designed to implement the Carnegie Corporation’s restructuring agenda was presented to the American people by President Bush’s Secretary of Education, Lamar Alexander! The plan proposed to radically restructure American society, and was prepared by, most notably, Chester E. Finn, former assistant secretary, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, and associated with Education Excellence Network (Hudson Institute). Finn was Alexander’s principal advisor on the key elements of the new “America 2000″ plan: a national examination system, a network of experimental schools, and public funding for private education, (vouchers/choice). He wrote the early drafts of the blueprint, and he accompanied Alexander to the White House in March to sell it to the president.

Senator Alexander and education change agent, Chester Finn, have collaborated on education many times over the years. Finn was appointed assistant secretary in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement by Secretary of Education, William Bennett, in the Reagan administration. Finn is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and chairman of Hoover’s Koret Task Force on K–12 Education. Finn is also president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Thomas B. Fordham Institute, (both pro-charters and choice) and contributing editor of Education Next. He served as founding partner and senior scholar with the Edison Project (which runs charter schools for profit) and was research associate at the liberal Brookings Institution; and legislative director for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Chris Whittle’s Edison Project, (Whittle was in Knoxville, TN originally), was an early pioneer in public/private partnerships in K-12 education in America.

In his introduction to America 2000, Lamar Alexander wrote, “On April 18, 1991, President Bush announced America 2000: An Education Strategy. It is a bold, comprehensive, and long-range plan to moveevery community in America toward the National Education Goals adopted by the President and the Governors last year.” President Bush, who often mentioned “new world order,” called for “new schools for a new world” in his announcement.

In an article in the January 25, 1989 issue of Education Week, Chester E. Finn, Jr., former head of the US Department of Education’s research branch told business leaders in Washington that he favored the development of a “national curriculum.” Link

Finn is a noted neo-con education “change agent,” who is deeply involved in the school choice/work force training agenda along with John Chubb of the liberal Brookings Institution and Center for Education Innovation. Lamar Alexander loves choice and vouchers and was touting choice in 1991 while Secretary of Education. Link In Finn’s article, ”Reinventing Local Control,” he contends that, “school boards are no longer capable of running schools, that the boards are superfluous and dysfunctional.”

Finn also stated, “At a time when radical alterations are needed throughout elementary-secondary education, school boards have become defenders of the status quo. The tradition of local control may need to be altered to admit the influence of external force change agents.” Finn denigrates “local control,” in favor of “external force change agents,” whatever the heck they are. Link Fortunately, we don’t have to guess what change agents are. They are clearly defined in the 1979 book “Change Agents in the Schools” by Barbara Morris. A critic of the concept, Morris quotes many education insiders on their definition of education and change agents. Our school boards may not always be filled with good people, but we can elect new people! What Finn advocates is the total elimination of local control, community input, and the school board. I highly doubt they’d have all favored America 2000 had they known Finn’s plans.

The elimination of the local school boards, and elimination of community input, is blatant “taxation without representation.” Didn’t we fight a war at the founding of this country for that very same reason? Yes by God, we did!

The words of John Chubb and Terry Moe, of The Brookings Institute and Stanford University respectively, — “Our guiding principle in the design of a choice system is this: Public authority must be put to use in creating a system that is almost entirely beyond the reach of public authority.” (Politics, Markets and America’s Schools, 1990). Please read that again slowly.

Do you fully understand the statement? Their plan was to fool the public into believing that school choice was a wonderful idea! What the public doesn’t comprehend is the fact that once school choice/vouchers are passed in a state, there is no more private education, religious or home schooled, that does not have to follow the rotten federal education requirements.

People must understand that private schools cannot remain independent once they have accepted federal funding through vouchers/choice.

The law reads: In March, 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that private schools are subject to government regulations because they enroll students who receive tuition money from the government . Even though the checks are payable to individual students, not the school, the Court says any scholarships, loans, or grants to students “constitute federal financial assistance.” (11) Continuing in the same direction, on January 28, 1988, the U .S. Senate (July 9, 1990)

The lovely sounding euphemism of “school choice” is ultimately the takeover of private schools and total control, and is the Trojan Horse to diminish and destroy the concept of elected representation as well as autonomy of private schools. Government funded vouchers for access to private schools will kill private education, for what government funds, government ultimately controls.

And just who is championing charters, school choice and vouchers?

On March 23, 2013, Lamar Alexander’s website had an article on the latest voucher/choice efforts in the Congress. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Mr. Rubio of Florida and Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania are co-sponsoring the measure, the latest Republican attempt to expand education vouchers. “When dollars intended to help low-income children are diverted to other purposes, we deprive these children of their opportunity to attend a better school, which is the best way for them to move up the economic ladder,” said Mr. Alexander, ranking Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Mr. Paul also serves on that panel.

The idea of vouchers/choice has been around for a long time. Here is quote from The Don Bell Report, August 10, 1990, Reeducation Monopoly, by Ginny Baker, “What do they want and how will they get it? To start with, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) of the socialist Fabian Society of England, said,‘Nothing will more quickly destroy independent Christian schools than state aid: their freedom and independence will soon be compromised, and before long their faith.’”

Here is a one-hour interview Charlotte Iserbyt (Senior Policy Advisor in Reagan’s education department) did with Guy Evans in the UK. The interview documents the Carnegie Corporation’s 1934 book calling for using schools to change America from a free market economy to a communist “planned economy.” Link It also includes Congressional Investigation of Tax-Exempt Foundations, the Soviet educational system, Reagan’s agreement with the Soviet Union to merge the two education systems, the Pavlovian/Skinnerian method, public/private partnerships, Reinventing School Coalition with no grades, (can graduate at 14 or 21), school choice/charter schools with unelected boards, Gates, and other foundations, the danger of computers, President Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, who is in bed with the Council on Foreign Relations, and Heritage Foundation, and neo-con groups supporting tax supported school choice/charter schools. etc.

Long time education researcher and friend, Ann Herzer stated, ” Frankly, it does not make any difference what the content is in Communist Core, because it is the brainwashing method that is so dangerous to all concerned. They could teach the Bible and still have the same results…a nation of robots and sheep!”

There is no doubt, Lamar Alexander has been instrumental in destroying our once great US academic education. In the final article on Lamar, we’ll look at the rest of his neo-con activities.

Kelleigh Nelson has been researching the Christian right and their connections to the left, the new age, and cults since 1975. Formerly an executive producer for three different national radio talk show hosts, she was adept at finding and scheduling a variety of wonderful guests for her radio hosts. She and her husband live in Knoxville, TN, and she has owned her own wholesale commercial bakery since 1990. Prior to moving to Tennessee, Kelleigh was marketing communications and advertising manager for a fortune 100 company in Ohio. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, she was a Goldwater girl with high school classmate, Hillary Rodham, in Park Ridge, Illinois. Kelleigh is well acquainted with Chicago politics and was working in downtown Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention riots. Kelleigh is presently the secretary for Rocky Top Freedom Campaign, a strong freedom advocate group.
Email Kelleigh: Proverbs133@bellsouth.net

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